Basil Bernstein:"A Sociolinguistic Approach to Socialization: With Some Reference to Educability"

Most studies or programs . . . have dealt directly with the language of children . . . and socialization. The reference has often been to the differentiation between RESTRICTED and ELABORATED language codes, and the consequences that these codes hold for the people who use them. The use (or abuse) of this distinction has sometimes led to the erroneous conception that a restricted code can be directly equated with linguistic deprivation, linguistic deficiency, or being nonverbal.

The error here seems largely due to the superficial focus upon the spoken details of the two codes rather than the broader conception of the codes as referring to the transmission of the basic or deep-meaning structures of a context, or both with social structure. To emphasize this broader concept, consider the distinction between uses of language which can be called context-bound and uses of language which are less context-bound.

This distinction can be seen in two stories constructed by Hawkins , based upon his analysis of the speech of middle-class (story A) and working class (story B) five-year-old children in London. The children were given a series of four pictures which portrayed the sequence of a story and they were invited to tell this story. The first picture shows some boys playing football near a house; the second shows the ball breaking a window; the third shows a man making a threatening gesture; in the fourth, the children are moving away, while watched by a woman peering out of the window.

(A) Middle Class- Three boys are playing football and one boy kicks the ball--and it goes through the window--the ball breaks the window--and the boys are looking at it--and a man comes out and shouts at them--because they've broken the window--so they ran away--and then that lady looks out of her window--and she tells the boys off.

(B) Working Class-They're playing football--and he kicks it and it goes through there--it breaks the window and they're looking at it--and he comes out and shouts at them– because they've broken it--so they run away--and then she looks out and she tells them off.

With the first story the reader does not have to have the four pictures which were used as the basis of the story, whereas in the second story, the reader would require the initial pictures in order to make sense of the story. The first story is free of the context which generated it, whereas the second story is much more closely tied to its context. As a result the meanings of the second story are implicit, whereas the meanings of the first story are explicit.

What we are dealing with here are differences between children in the way they realize, in their language use, what is apparently the same context. The first child takes very little for granted, whereas the second child takes a great deal for granted. Thus for the first child the task was seen as a context in which his meanings were required for explication, whereas the task for the second child was not seen as a task which required such explication of the meaning.

We could say that the speech of the first child generated universalistic meanings in the sense that the meanings are freed from the context and so understandable by all. Whereas the speech of the second child generated particularistic meanings in the sense that the meanings are closely tied to the context which originally generated the speech.

Reflection on the above material:

(A) MIDDLE CLASS [MC]—ELABORATED CODE

(B) WORKING CLASS [WC]—RESTRICTED CODE

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MC—UNIVERSALISTIC MEANINGS—“I” [INDIVIDUAL IS IMPORTANT]

WC—PARTICULARISTIC MEANINGS—“WE” [COMMUNAL GROUP IS IMPORTANT]

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MC—EXPLICIT (USE OF NOUNS) MEANINGS ARE CLEAR AND SELF-EVIDENT

WC—IMPLICIT (USE OF PRONOUNS) HIDDEN MEANINGS, OFTEN UNCLEAR

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MC—FREE OF THE CONTEXT WHICH GENERATED THE STORY (4 PICTURES)

WC—CONTEXT-BOUND (NEED 4 PICTURES)

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MC—OPEN SYSTEM–STANDARD ENGLISH LEXICON

WC—CLOSED SYSTEM–UNIQUE LEXICON [SLANG] OR SPECIALIZED LANGUAGE

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MC—OBJECTIVE CRITERIA–INDEPENDENT

WC—SHARED NUANCES—GROUP NORMS

BERNSTEIN–FAMILY STRUCTURE

MC–PERSON-ORIENTED FAMILY [NO BOSS] EQUAL STATUS TO ALL MEMBERS

WC—POSITIONAL FAMILY-STATUS HIERARCHY BASED ON [TITLE: FATHER,

MOTHER, AGE, GENDER, GRANDPARENTS] _____________________________________________

DECISION-MAKING:

MC–EGALITARIAN:DIALOGUE & DISCUSSION [“Let’s talk about this and then decide”]

WC–AUTHORITARIAN: IMPERATIVE MODE [“No! Shut up...I’m your father!”]

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